Daily Covid-19 infections in Singapore drop below 10,000 for first time in a month

[SINGAPORE] The total number of daily Covid-19 cases dipped below 10,000 for the first time in about a month, with 9,701 total cases reported on Sunday (Mar 13).

There were also 1,348 hospitalisations on Sunday, according to the Ministry of Health's (MOH) daily update.

This is down from 12,632 infections and 1,375 hospitalisations a day earlier.

The last time the total number of daily Covid-19 cases went below 10,000 was on Feb 14.

The number of new daily cases is also lower than last Sunday's, when MOH recorded 13,158 new Covid-19 cases.

The Covid-19 weekly infection growth rate remained below 1 at 0.87 on Sunday.

This is the 12th consecutive day the weekly infection rate has dipped below 1 since Mar 2.

The rate refers to the ratio of community cases for the past week over the week before. A rate of more than 1 indicates the number of new weekly Covid-19 cases is increasing.

Six deaths were reported on Saturday, down from 10 on Saturday.

There were 32 patients in the intensive care unit, and 181 required oxygen supplementation.

Of the local cases, 8,326 were detected through antigen rapid tests (ARTs), which means they were assessed by a doctor to have mild symptoms and of low risk.

Another 1,271 cases were detected through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests.

There were 104 new imported cases, of which 47 were detected through PCR tests and 57 through ARTs.

As at Sunday, Singapore has recorded a total of 939,436 Covid-19 cases and 1,145 deaths.

About 95 per cent of the eligible population in Singapore have completed their full vaccination regimen, and 70 per cent of the total population have received their booster shot. THE STRAITS TIMES